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Game Journal 2 – Final Fantasy X

Since I talked a lot about what I’ve experienced and noticed through my game journal last time, I’ll talking a little bit about what actual happened during the same before I continue forward in this journal to avoid confusion.

[Recap]

At the beginning of Final Fantasy X, the player finds himself watching an emotional scene that pans around a few characters representing a sadness that seems to be reflecting from the currently ruined city in the background. “Listen to my story.. this may be our last chance,” Tidus said as the title screen transitioned in. The game starts off with Tidus in his home city known as Zanarkand where he seemed to be a star of a sport called Blitz Ball. The player at this point is allowed to navigate Tidus around the screen with a mini map located the the upper left hand screen to help him reach his objectives. Not a lot can be done at this point because the player is required to reach his objective before he is allowed to continue. While the player guides Tidus to a stadium where a Blitz Ball tournament is being held a cut scene comes though and an immense creature attacks Zanarkand causing a turn of events.

The players was now guiding Tidus once again to a new objective and this time a battle system is introduced allowing Tidus to fight enemies he encounters with the help of an NPC named Auron. Upon reaching the objective another cut scene is played and the player finds himself waking up in an abandoned ruin fighting enemies he encounters for his survival which the player is able to interact with.

[Continue ]

From where the player last left off Tidus was rescued by people known as Al Bhed. With a new list of objectives the player guides Tidus through the underwater world he was on top of and completes a few objectives here and there before a game scene took place. Tidus, finds out that Zanarkand was destroyed 1000 years ago only throwing confusing to what was really happening. The same immense monster that appeared and took him away from his home was known as, Sin, only to once again appeared where he was at and took him to yet again a completely different place but this time waking up to a few strangers of which one was named Wakka. The player being in control now is allowed to guide Tidus around the area heading back into the main town and proceeds into a temple where he had to interact with a puzzle sphere in order to proceed in the game introducing a few more character that was to join his party on his adventure.

Final Fantasy X at this point plays many cut scenes and game scenes which throw players like myself off at times. The cut scenes are highly animated like a movie allowing me to enjoy a few minutes worth of my play experience. However game scenes were very tricky and confusing, for example when I was leading Tidus through the Blitz Ball stadium a game scene was being play and Tidus ended up talking and sub titles appeared on the screen, which meant that I was allowed to move and I stood there for quite some time letting what I thought to be the scene finish. The player was left with a lot of affordances so far throughout the game. There were many places they could of gone or many things they could of done that the current game scene expressed but only one set objective and goal was allowed to be done throwing the player off most of the times. The user interface itself was pretty simple, a mini map located on the upper left hand corners was always displaying allowing the player to find or reach where he / she was at throughout the current level.